HOME | DD

Description
   A nurse was removing old bandages around the small girl's chest and leg, as well as checking the cracked ribs and leg bone. "You're healing very quickly Mari, I'm surprised" the nurse smiled, her lips full from long ago plastic surgeries to impress her doctor at that time.

"Thank you Terry" the blonde strands of hair falling over two emerald green eyes.

"I would say you can keep off these bandages and actually start missions again" Terry informed the girl nicely.

"Just in time too, cause I have a job for you Marigold" the familiar voice of the survivor's faction sounded from the door.

Marigold looked over to her leader, gently standing up to feel no pain in her leg, "Okay, what do you need?"

Mink nodded to Terry, who then slipped by Mink and out of the door, leaving the two alone, "Well, we had just received word of a possible way to kill the infected, almost all of them. This is dangerous, but I need you to prove yourself to me and do this, got it?"

"Y-yes" Marigold stuttered.

"Good" Mink nodded, "There's a CDC center in north Edenburg that was researching how to kill the infected before it was abandoned. If you find any information about this, thing, to kill the infected, then unleash it. If you can't figure out how to do that, then bring back anything you can and tell me what you've found."

Marigold nodded cautiously, "O-okay, I can do that."

"There'll be a bandit team waiting for you near the CDC center to help keep you safe, since I know you're not the strongest on your own, okay?" Mink looked a little concerned for the girl.

"Okay, I got it" Marigold smiled to her leader.

"You better get going, what I've heard of this bandit team, is that one of them is impatient and is very... stabhappy."

"Oh jeez... Another stabhappy person..." Marigold muttered to herself, before walking out of her room, the hint of a limp in her step.

--------

   "Oooo~ I hope our temporary team ma'e is nice~"

"Bark!"

An African american, a Caucasian, and a white Pomeranian were waiting at the edge of Edenburg city, Scourge having told them to wait for a lone survivor.

"I hope they get here soon..." The Caucasian muttered quietly, as she cleaned her baton again.

"Oh Zoya, come on! They probably jus' lef' a li'le while ago."

Zoya rolled her eyes, as a small girl walked out of the trees, pushing the branches aside. The emerald green eyes scanned the duo, "A-are you two Zoya and Orla?" the timid voice asked.

"Oh yes~ And you mus' be out temporary team ma'e~" Orla said cheerfully. "Sorry, Scourge didn' tell us your name swee'y."

The girl smiled, "I'm Marigold, it's nice to meet you."

"You too~"

"Bark!" The white Pomeranian spoke up.

"Oh my goodness! A puppy!" Marigold squealed, then rushed over to the dog, letting it lick her face as she roughly pet the dog.

Orla laughed at the two, "Tha's Cricke', I see he already likes ya~"

Zoya rolled her eyes, then said to the dog, "Cricket, off" in which the dog listened and ran over to Zoya, the very fluffy tail wagging so fast his whole body was moving with it.

Marigold looked a little disappointed but got up anyways, dusting herself off, "So, uh, where is this CDC center?"

"In the city" Zoya's quiet voice answered.

"Oh, and one more question, what does CDC stand for?"

Zoya rolled her eyes as Orla smiled, "Awww~ You're so innocen'ly adorable~" she cooed. "I' s'ands for Center of Disease Con'rol"

"Oh, okay" Marigold nodded.

The black haired woman then stood up, towering over the girl and began walking into the city, a crashed bus on the side of the road as the other two then followed behind her. Orla made sure to put Marigold in between the two, with Cricket in the front.

Zoya was muttering to herself, "We're practically fucking bodyguards, no fucking babysitters, god, why is she on this mission? She's way too young for this shit" Marigold could barely hear the woman in front of her.

Marigold frowned a bit, but tried to not let it bother her, "Don' worry swee'y, Zoya's jus' crabby~" Orla smiled at the 13 year old.

Zoya rolled her eyes, as she scanned the city, an ominous silence overcoming the city, no noises from the buildings, and not a single infected around. "This is not as I remember it..." Marigold said quietly.

"You've been here before?" Orla asked, her head tilting a bit to left.

Marigold nodded, "Yeah, but before there were tons of infected, but it seems the fireworks worked to get most of them away from the city."

"Fireworks?" Zoya actually spoke up, looking back at the girl, raising her right eyebrow.

"Yeah, I was with these two groups from the other two fac-" Marigold was cut off.

Orla interrupted, "Oh~ You mean Joel and Kevin's group~ Yeah! They mentioned a li'le girl named Marigold~ I can' believe I didn' ge' tha'!" The african american was giggling.

"Yup, that's them" Marigold smiled, her face turning a bright red as she looked at the ground.

Orla continued to laugh, while Cricket below them darted up to Zoya, panting with his tail wagging very quickly. Zoya noticed this, and seemed to get the feeling that there wasn't anything to be worried about, since the dog would usually be very tense with any infected around. "Hmm" was all Zoya said about the matter though, not even catching the two's attention behind her.

After a good half hour of walking and small talk between Orla and Marigold, the group came upon a white building with a rectangle on one end and a cylinder with a half circle on top of it. "Tha's i'" Orla pointed to the sign on top of the front door reading, "CENTER of DISEASE CONTROL"

The survivor group entered the building, no spores present in the building. It was the only building that looked unbroken, except for an occasional fat black vine hanging down the wall. "Be careful, those vines have barbs on them" it was Zoya who gave the warning, "We don't know what they are, and we don't want to find out."

There were three corridors, one to the left, right and in front of them.

"Medicine >
Experiments <
Enhanced Cures ^"

Zoya set off for the middle corridor, more vines dripping down the ceiling. From behind a door, there read graffiti "HELP! TRAPPED INSIDE!" There was a crowbar on the door, along with breathing sounds from inside.

"We should help them" Marigold spoke up, as she started to pull on the crowbar.

"Wait!" Zoya hissed, in which the girl froze.

Orla stepped up to the door and shouted inside, "Is anybody in there?!"

A gasp could be heard inside, "Y-yes! It's just me though! Please, I've been trapped in here for so long!" A man's voice shouted back, he sounded pretty weak.

"How'd ya ge' trapped in there?"

The man shouted back, "My coworkers pushed me in here along with throwing a bunch of food in here as well, they said they would come back, but they never did. I don't know what's going on, please, my food has been gone for a week now, it's hard to move!"

Orla looked to Zoya who sighed, then nodded to Marigold who opened the door. Inside was the man, his face sunken in, arms as thin as his bones. The man looked up at them with dark brown eyes, his blonde hair falling over his eyes slightly, along with a long blonde beard going down to his chest. "Thank god... someone finally came..."

Marigold gave a small smile, then pulled off her backpack, reaching inside she pulled out a can of spam. "Here you go" she handed the can of spam to him, after opening it.

"Thank you so much" the man then began to gorge.

"H-hey! Slow down! You'll only make yourself sick by gorging" Marigold pointed out as she pushed away cans and bags of empty food containers to sit cross legged by the man.

"O-oh right" he nodded, then slowed down eating.

Zoya scanned the room to find a hole in the ceiling where water dripped into a larger beaker. This room also looked to be where they made medicine, beakers upon empty beakers sat around the room in no particular order. Some of the beakers were filled with water though.

Cricket was off and sniffing the room for any strange scents while Orla smiled at Marigold and this man.

After the man finished the spam, looking to have some strength back, Orla asked, "So, wha's your name?"

The man looked up at her, "Oh, excuse me for being so rude, my name's Max."

Marigold smiled at him, "I'm Marigold."

"And I'm Orla, tha' there is Zoya" she pointed to the tall woman, then pointed to the white Pomeranian, "and there's Cricke'"

Max smiled, "Thank you so much for unlocking me, but why are ya'll here, if you don't mind me asking that is."

Marigold answered him, still sitting cross legged on the floor next to him, "We're looking for a cure."

"A cure, but for what?"

The three women, and even the dog glanced at each other, Zoya quietly and slowly asked, "How long have you been stuck here?"

"Well, I'd say about a year and a half now. The last thing on the news was that some terrorists were attacking major cities."

Zoya pinched the bridge of her nose, as Marigold looked to Orla to explain the situation now. "Well, i' wasn' terroris's, i' was an infection of fungus tha' turned people inta cannibals, otherwise zombies."

Max's eyes went wide, "the hell? You must be lying."

Marigold frowned, as Zoya then spoke up, "How do you fucking explain the fact that a... little girl has had to kill then?"

Marigold shrank down, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. "You're lying! This sweet girl couldn't hurt a fly!" Max tried to tell them.

Marigold's shaking voice answered that, "Y-you're wrong, I had to kill one of those... monsters..."

The man then stood up, staggering a little, still too weak to really be able to catch himself. Zoya glared at him, "You better accept this fact, cause it's the world now. And we need your help as well, we need to find where the cure was being made, or where it may have been trying to be made."

"U-uh, o-okay" his mind seemed to be trying to process what he had just learned. "Th-there's a set of stairs that way, where we had been trying to cure cancer, if it's really as bad as you said, then they probably would've been there."

"Thanks" was all Zoya said before walking out of the room.

"But! You need a card key to get in" Max then pulled out his card, and followed Zoya shakily.

Marigold got up and went on his right, so he could lean on her, even though he was about 5'6" when standing, and Marigold was a full head under him. He still leaned on her though, as they slowly made the long and slow climb up the stairs.

Orla had to carry Cricket up the stairs, since he was too preoccupied with sniffing the room to notice the group had started to move.

Zoya was waiting impatiently for Marigold and Max to get to the top of the stairs. When they did reach the top, Max flicked his card through the slider, and the door pinged open.

In the room was a lab table, white walls, a control panel with a lot of buttons on it, and a lot of those thick black vines on them. Max then stopped leaning on the girl and walked over to one of the vines, "What are these?"

"We don' know, bu' I sugges' you don' touch them" Orla said, entering the room, with Cricket still locked in her arms.

Zoya looked at the dog, and saw his fur was standing on end in this room, "Hmm." She then walked over to the lab table, finding more beakers, some of these filled with a greenish liquid, while others were filled with a black liquid, reminding her of the vines.

Marigold was looking around as well, but she was looking at all the buttons on the control panel, "I wonder what these do" she murmured to herself, wanting so bad to push all of the buttons.

Orla hadn't noticed Crickets tenseness and was walking around, noticing a big window looking outside to the city. "This is a nice view, huh Cricke'?"

Max was still observing the vines, when something told him to reach out and touch it. His finger was barely pricked by one of the barbs. As soon as Max had touched a barb, Cricket started barking and growling. "Ah!" Max cried out in pain, as a pain like no other seared up his arm with blinding speed, as soon as it reached his heart, his whole body burned, but the main pain was in his head. The rest of the survivors looked at him, to see his eyes lose all color, along with his already pale skin going even paler. A black foam started to escape from his mouth as he coughed and coughed. The next thing to happen was one of those black vines exploded from his head, causing some of his skull to fly all over the place.

"Max!" Marigold screamed in horror, as the man collapsed to the floor. The vines on the walls began to move, only to reveal more humans with the black fat vines sticking out of their heads.

"RUN!" Zoya shouted, before the newly seen monsters could notice the group.

The last survivors darted away, Marigold hyperventilating and stumbling as an ache started in her leg again. Zoya noticed her stumbling, and yanked the girl onto her back, causing a small yelp from the small girl. As they ran towards the exit, all the vines that they had seen when first having walked in were now alive, and looking like humans consumed by the vines.

The group didn't stop running until they were outside of the city walls, and a good mile from it as well. All of them were breathing heavily, when, from inside the city, came howls and screeches. "Wha' have we done?" Orla asked in horror.

"We just released a more deadly version of this infection" Zoya answered, as dread fell upon the group.

Description
   A nurse was removing old bandages around the small girl's chest and leg, as well as checking the cracked ribs and leg bone. "You're healing very quickly Mari, I'm surprised" the nurse smiled, her lips full from long ago plastic surgeries to impress her doctor at that time.

"Thank you Terry" the blonde strands of hair falling over two emerald green eyes.

"I would say you can keep off these bandages and actually start missions again" Terry informed the girl nicely.

"Just in time too, cause I have a job for you Marigold" the familiar voice of the survivor's faction sounded from the door.

Marigold looked over to her leader, gently standing up to feel no pain in her leg, "Okay, what do you need?"

Mink nodded to Terry, who then slipped by Mink and out of the door, leaving the two alone, "Well, we had just received word of a possible way to kill the infected, almost all of them. This is dangerous, but I need you to prove yourself to me and do this, got it?"

"Y-yes" Marigold stuttered.

"Good" Mink nodded, "There's a CDC center in north Edenburg that was researching how to kill the infected before it was abandoned. If you find any information about this, thing, to kill the infected, then unleash it. If you can't figure out how to do that, then bring back anything you can and tell me what you've found."

Marigold nodded cautiously, "O-okay, I can do that."

"There'll be a bandit team waiting for you near the CDC center to help keep you safe, since I know you're not the strongest on your own, okay?" Mink looked a little concerned for the girl.

"Okay, I got it" Marigold smiled to her leader.

"You better get going, what I've heard of this bandit team, is that one of them is impatient and is very... stabhappy."

"Oh jeez... Another stabhappy person..." Marigold muttered to herself, before walking out of her room, the hint of a limp in her step.

--------

   "Oooo~ I hope our temporary team ma'e is nice~"

"Bark!"

An African american, a Caucasian, and a white Pomeranian were waiting at the edge of Edenburg city, Scourge having told them to wait for a lone survivor.

"I hope they get here soon..." The Caucasian muttered quietly, as she cleaned her baton again.

"Oh Zoya, come on! They probably jus' lef' a li'le while ago."

Zoya rolled her eyes, as a small girl walked out of the trees, pushing the branches aside. The emerald green eyes scanned the duo, "A-are you two Zoya and Orla?" the timid voice asked.

"Oh yes~ And you mus' be out temporary team ma'e~" Orla said cheerfully. "Sorry, Scourge didn' tell us your name swee'y."

The girl smiled, "I'm Marigold, it's nice to meet you."

"You too~"

"Bark!" The white Pomeranian spoke up.

"Oh my goodness! A puppy!" Marigold squealed, then rushed over to the dog, letting it lick her face as she roughly pet the dog.

Orla laughed at the two, "Tha's Cricke', I see he already likes ya~"

Zoya rolled her eyes, then said to the dog, "Cricket, off" in which the dog listened and ran over to Zoya, the very fluffy tail wagging so fast his whole body was moving with it.

Marigold looked a little disappointed but got up anyways, dusting herself off, "So, uh, where is this CDC center?"

"In the city" Zoya's quiet voice answered.

"Oh, and one more question, what does CDC stand for?"

Zoya rolled her eyes as Orla smiled, "Awww~ You're so innocen'ly adorable~" she cooed. "I' s'ands for Center of Disease Con'rol"

"Oh, okay" Marigold nodded.

The black haired woman then stood up, towering over the girl and began walking into the city, a crashed bus on the side of the road as the other two then followed behind her. Orla made sure to put Marigold in between the two, with Cricket in the front.

Zoya was muttering to herself, "We're practically fucking bodyguards, no fucking babysitters, god, why is she on this mission? She's way too young for this shit" Marigold could barely hear the woman in front of her.

Marigold frowned a bit, but tried to not let it bother her, "Don' worry swee'y, Zoya's jus' crabby~" Orla smiled at the 13 year old.

Zoya rolled her eyes, as she scanned the city, an ominous silence overcoming the city, no noises from the buildings, and not a single infected around. "This is not as I remember it..." Marigold said quietly.

"You've been here before?" Orla asked, her head tilting a bit to left.

Marigold nodded, "Yeah, but before there were tons of infected, but it seems the fireworks worked to get most of them away from the city."

"Fireworks?" Zoya actually spoke up, looking back at the girl, raising her right eyebrow.

"Yeah, I was with these two groups from the other two fac-" Marigold was cut off.

Orla interrupted, "Oh~ You mean Joel and Kevin's group~ Yeah! They mentioned a li'le girl named Marigold~ I can' believe I didn' ge' tha'!" The african american was giggling.

"Yup, that's them" Marigold smiled, her face turning a bright red as she looked at the ground.

Orla continued to laugh, while Cricket below them darted up to Zoya, panting with his tail wagging very quickly. Zoya noticed this, and seemed to get the feeling that there wasn't anything to be worried about, since the dog would usually be very tense with any infected around. "Hmm" was all Zoya said about the matter though, not even catching the two's attention behind her.

After a good half hour of walking and small talk between Orla and Marigold, the group came upon a white building with a rectangle on one end and a cylinder with a half circle on top of it. "Tha's i'" Orla pointed to the sign on top of the front door reading, "CENTER of DISEASE CONTROL"

The survivor group entered the building, no spores present in the building. It was the only building that looked unbroken, except for an occasional fat black vine hanging down the wall. "Be careful, those vines have barbs on them" it was Zoya who gave the warning, "We don't know what they are, and we don't want to find out."

There were three corridors, one to the left, right and in front of them.

"Medicine >
Experiments <
Enhanced Cures ^"

Zoya set off for the middle corridor, more vines dripping down the ceiling. From behind a door, there read graffiti "HELP! TRAPPED INSIDE!" There was a crowbar on the door, along with breathing sounds from inside.

"We should help them" Marigold spoke up, as she started to pull on the crowbar.

"Wait!" Zoya hissed, in which the girl froze.

Orla stepped up to the door and shouted inside, "Is anybody in there?!"

A gasp could be heard inside, "Y-yes! It's just me though! Please, I've been trapped in here for so long!" A man's voice shouted back, he sounded pretty weak.

"How'd ya ge' trapped in there?"

The man shouted back, "My coworkers pushed me in here along with throwing a bunch of food in here as well, they said they would come back, but they never did. I don't know what's going on, please, my food has been gone for a week now, it's hard to move!"

Orla looked to Zoya who sighed, then nodded to Marigold who opened the door. Inside was the man, his face sunken in, arms as thin as his bones. The man looked up at them with dark brown eyes, his blonde hair falling over his eyes slightly, along with a long blonde beard going down to his chest. "Thank god... someone finally came..."

Marigold gave a small smile, then pulled off her backpack, reaching inside she pulled out a can of spam. "Here you go" she handed the can of spam to him, after opening it.

"Thank you so much" the man then began to gorge.

"H-hey! Slow down! You'll only make yourself sick by gorging" Marigold pointed out as she pushed away cans and bags of empty food containers to sit cross legged by the man.

"O-oh right" he nodded, then slowed down eating.

Zoya scanned the room to find a hole in the ceiling where water dripped into a larger beaker. This room also looked to be where they made medicine, beakers upon empty beakers sat around the room in no particular order. Some of the beakers were filled with water though.

Cricket was off and sniffing the room for any strange scents while Orla smiled at Marigold and this man.

After the man finished the spam, looking to have some strength back, Orla asked, "So, wha's your name?"

The man looked up at her, "Oh, excuse me for being so rude, my name's Max."

Marigold smiled at him, "I'm Marigold."

"And I'm Orla, tha' there is Zoya" she pointed to the tall woman, then pointed to the white Pomeranian, "and there's Cricke'"

Max smiled, "Thank you so much for unlocking me, but why are ya'll here, if you don't mind me asking that is."

Marigold answered him, still sitting cross legged on the floor next to him, "We're looking for a cure."

"A cure, but for what?"

The three women, and even the dog glanced at each other, Zoya quietly and slowly asked, "How long have you been stuck here?"

"Well, I'd say about a year and a half now. The last thing on the news was that some terrorists were attacking major cities."

Zoya pinched the bridge of her nose, as Marigold looked to Orla to explain the situation now. "Well, i' wasn' terroris's, i' was an infection of fungus tha' turned people inta cannibals, otherwise zombies."

Max's eyes went wide, "the hell? You must be lying."

Marigold frowned, as Zoya then spoke up, "How do you fucking explain the fact that a... little girl has had to kill then?"

Marigold shrank down, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. "You're lying! This sweet girl couldn't hurt a fly!" Max tried to tell them.

Marigold's shaking voice answered that, "Y-you're wrong, I had to kill one of those... monsters..."

The man then stood up, staggering a little, still too weak to really be able to catch himself. Zoya glared at him, "You better accept this fact, cause it's the world now. And we need your help as well, we need to find where the cure was being made, or where it may have been trying to be made."

"U-uh, o-okay" his mind seemed to be trying to process what he had just learned. "Th-there's a set of stairs that way, where we had been trying to cure cancer, if it's really as bad as you said, then they probably would've been there."

"Thanks" was all Zoya said before walking out of the room.

"But! You need a card key to get in" Max then pulled out his card, and followed Zoya shakily.

Marigold got up and went on his right, so he could lean on her, even though he was about 5'6" when standing, and Marigold was a full head under him. He still leaned on her though, as they slowly made the long and slow climb up the stairs.

Orla had to carry Cricket up the stairs, since he was too preoccupied with sniffing the room to notice the group had started to move.

Zoya was waiting impatiently for Marigold and Max to get to the top of the stairs. When they did reach the top, Max flicked his card through the slider, and the door pinged open.

In the room was a lab table, white walls, a control panel with a lot of buttons on it, and a lot of those thick black vines on them. Max then stopped leaning on the girl and walked over to one of the vines, "What are these?"

"We don' know, bu' I sugges' you don' touch them" Orla said, entering the room, with Cricket still locked in her arms.

Zoya looked at the dog, and saw his fur was standing on end in this room, "Hmm." She then walked over to the lab table, finding more beakers, some of these filled with a greenish liquid, while others were filled with a black liquid, reminding her of the vines.

Marigold was looking around as well, but she was looking at all the buttons on the control panel, "I wonder what these do" she murmured to herself, wanting so bad to push all of the buttons.

Orla hadn't noticed Crickets tenseness and was walking around, noticing a big window looking outside to the city. "This is a nice view, huh Cricke'?"

Max was still observing the vines, when something told him to reach out and touch it. His finger was barely pricked by one of the barbs. As soon as Max had touched a barb, Cricket started barking and growling. "Ah!" Max cried out in pain, as a pain like no other seared up his arm with blinding speed, as soon as it reached his heart, his whole body burned, but the main pain was in his head. The rest of the survivors looked at him, to see his eyes lose all color, along with his already pale skin going even paler. A black foam started to escape from his mouth as he coughed and coughed. The next thing to happen was one of those black vines exploded from his head, causing some of his skull to fly all over the place.

"Max!" Marigold screamed in horror, as the man collapsed to the floor. The vines on the walls began to move, only to reveal more humans with the black fat vines sticking out of their heads.

"RUN!" Zoya shouted, before the newly seen monsters could notice the group.

The last survivors darted away, Marigold hyperventilating and stumbling as an ache started in her leg again. Zoya noticed her stumbling, and yanked the girl onto her back, causing a small yelp from the small girl. As they ran towards the exit, all the vines that they had seen when first having walked in were now alive, and looking like humans consumed by the vines.

The group didn't stop running until they were outside of the city walls, and a good mile from it as well. All of them were breathing heavily, when, from inside the city, came howls and screeches. "Wha' have we done?" Orla asked in horror.

"We just released a more deadly version of this infection" Zoya answered, as dread fell upon the group.